Is it time to switch to 12/12?

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Can't speak to the itch but I can tell you that you should get meters to fit in your jars. I have 5. You don't know the humidity of your buds without them. All you can do is hope that packet works fast enough.

Buds are a lot wetter in the inside that the crispy outside you can feel. It's hard for me to offer advice on drying and curing without accurate info.

I'll order a few hydrometers pronto. But the bud I opened is basically dry inside. I think I probably dried it too fast. But I am not disappointed. The next round will be done more precise than these and I'll trim them better too etc. So I can't imagine how amazing those buds are going to be, if these are already very decent.

The humidity in the jars seem to be very low. 52%. Even with the humidity packs. I'll check again in 3 hours. In which case do I leave the humidity packs? If it's low? Is the goal to get to 55 - 62% RH?

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Haha. I have one hydrometer that can fit in a jar. Its screen barely works because it got wet. If I leave the humidity pack out, it says 52% inside. If I put it in, it goes to 55. I have 55% humidity packs. So I'm guessing I need to get 62% packs.

I'm going to need ventilation in this room, because the humidity is 80 outside, but inside I think it's going down because it gets so warm in there. I dunno. Depending on how my mite problem goes, I mite decide to cure in the grow room next time.

Note: Next time is probably 4 - 5 weeks away. The Purple Haze Photoperiods are coming along nicely. They should be up for chop soon.

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It might be helpful to think about the bud as a living organism still. It still has water content even though it has been removed from the plant. When you initially dry the plant, this is done to initally remove the extreme moisture levels, while leaving some moisture left for you to cure. When drying the buds upside down, water content releases from the inside bud, to the outside bud layer, and then into the air.

When you cure, think of it as preserving the water content before it completely dries away into the air. Once the dried bud goes in the jar, now moisture released from buds STAYS in the jar, and begins to pool moisture slowly back toward the middle of the bud. The result: that rock hard, crispy, frosty, break apart in your fingers, dispo level nug, it has been allowed to retain low levels of moisture, for a long amount of time, evaporating more chlorophyl, and chemically altering canabinoids/terpenes. This is why it is smoother, stronger, and smellier. Hydrated terpenes, flavanoids and cannabinoids are preserved terpense flavanoids, terpense and cannabinoids.

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Thanks for the awesome explanation @DET—PDX. I have since discovered that they sell 55% and 62% at the shop. I just assumed 55 would be the best, but it sounds like 62% is what I need, to get the humidity to reach that level. So as to slow the drying. I think my buds dried too quickly and with the next harvest, my goal will be to get this perfect. Round 1 was always experimental. It's the 3 Purple Haze's that I am going to harvest in the next few weeks that need to be perfect! And I think I am going to get it a lot closer to perfect this time! I have ordered my humidity packs! Will see how it goes this time round!

Just as a side note, I have been thrown a second curve ball. The first curve ball is the mites that I am still going to be battling for a while, especially while I wait for my predatory mites to arrive. But on top of that, rolling blackouts have started today. That means that every day, for the foreseeable future, I love power for about 2.5 hours every day. Sometimes 5 hours. I have an inverter for the aircon, so I should at least be able to manage the humidity in that time. But I wont be able to power any lights or any fans. I'm looking at a better solution for the house. I.e. An inverter and a battery pack that can handle the entire house. But that is going to be costly and take time to implement.

[this last paragraph is just me moaning, because I dont think anyone can help me with advice around that]

Ah. Good idea. I will for sure get one. Bonus if i can find one that also has a timer anf autocharges, so it happens automatically. Today we had 3 separate 2-hour outages. Dealing with that manually would be a pain.

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Another update. It looks like my purple hazes are almost ready for harvest. Checked the trichomes, mostly milky. Expecting amber ones any day now. But that actually sucks. These were photoperiods. I expected them to have a much bigger yield, and much bigger buds. They might still surprise me, but i think im dreaming if im hoping to get more than 200 g’s per plant.

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I think I might be jumping the gun. The pistels are still mostly white. So i'm not sure why I'm seeing so many cloudly trichomes. I'll start worrying when I see amber. But here are some pics and it looks like some of these buds might actually turn out to be pretty huge.

Plant 1

Plant 2

Plant 1 and 2 are doing okay because most of the mites go to plant 3. You'll see the leaves for plant 3 are covered in white spots. She got pretty badly beaten up by the bugs:

Here it is a bit closer:

But despite the mites, the buds look like they'll turn out okay. But it's pretty obvious to me now, but wasn't before:
a) The mites take little bites into the leaves which is what leaves the white spots
b) You can ignore them, but by the time they look like these pictures, where it almost look like there's powdery mildew on it... then it's too late and you will have already hurt your yields.
c) I assume because of these bite marks the plant has to keep sending nutrients to the leaves to heal. Which means less nutrients and energy to make buds. So smaller yields.

In short: Don't give mites the chance to let it reach this point. I wouldn't be surprised if this plant yields half of what the other two plants yield.

Here are some pics of the other plants buds: (notice how amazingly green the leaves are compared to plant #3)

And another:

My predatory mites are coming tomorrow or the day after. I'm out of ISO, so I'm hoping these predatory mites will sort out my problem til harvest time.

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I was phoned and told the mites will only arrive next week. Which is essentially pointless now. I am leaving town next Friday, and 1 of the 3 girls have started showing decent amounts of amber. So it's ready I think. So by the time the mites get here, I will probably have harvested all 3. So I'm solidly annoyed at the place that provides the bugs. And I'm out of iso.

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